Dripping in Blood
by rebellion101
Summary: They all thought she had come from a broken home, had been abandoned in the streets never knowing her true parents, or maybe had been abused by her family and that was where the scars on her back had come from. Except it wasn't true.


Dripping in Blood

They all thought she had come from a broken home, had been abandoned in the streets never knowing her true parents, or maybe had been abused by her family and that was where the scars on her back had come from. A whip of a belt slashing across her back dripping with blood as her father held her down while she pleaded, begged for him to stop telling him she was sorry she was late.

Except it wasn't true, all the rumors were false. She had come from a loving, structured home. Her father never beat her; he could barely yell at her when he was angry. He was more of the silent brooding type and besides that she was her daddy's girl. She had him wrapped around her finger then and all she had to do was say three words and his anger would be gone in a flash.

She wondered now if she still could have that same effect on her father. Probably not, she had changed too much since then. She wasn't her daddy's little princess or her mommy's sweet angel. Yeah, once upon a time the legendary murderess of the Circle was seen as an angel and not a deadly one.

_What would any of them think of me if they knew my true childhood?_

"Ruthie!" Her mother's voice rang, loud and clear throughout the halls and into her room. "Ruthie Michelle Goode you wake up this instance. Do you want to be late?" Ruthie groaned and rolled over in her bed, pulling the covers over her head. She could hear her mother sigh. "Annie, sweetie, can you go wake up your sister for me?"

"Sure," Annie chirped. She was a morning person, the exact opposite of her sister. Ruthie hoped that Annie would never come to know how opposite the two sister really were.

Within minutes her twelve year old sister was hopping on her bed and singing at the top of her lungs. There was a crash in another room as her older brother Michael woke up for the day. He didn't have to get up early today and neither did her twin brother Steven, but Steven was like Annie and Michael was like Ruthie and so Michael like Ruthie had wanted to sleep in that morning.

_At least I'm not the only one who has to wake up for this miserable day_, Ruthie thought with a smirk.

Soon Annie fell down to her knees and rested her head against the other pillow breathing hard and giggling as she looked to see if her sister was awake. Ruthie's eyes remained closed and her breathing was normal and controlled. If Annie had been older and had more training she would have realized that her sister was only to be pretending to be asleep. Instead Annie foolishly reached a hand to shake her sister's shoulder when suddenly her sister's eyes opened and Ruthie had jumped up and attached Annie.

Annie let out a stream of laughs as Ruthie relentlessly tickled her knowing how exactly where her sister was ticklish. "Ruthie!" Annie shouted in-between laughs. "Ruthie, stop!"

After a minute and eleven seconds Ruthie released her heavily breathing, heavily giggling sister. Annie looked at her sister with a wide, happy smile.

Seeing her sister so happy Ruthie suddenly stood and walked over to her bureau mirror and saw the huge smile, the huge _real_ smile, on her own face. It had taken weeks but being back with her family had brought back her own happiness, the one she lost every semester she went to the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women.

"Ruthie?" Annie called as she hopped off her sister's bed. She stepped lightly over to her sister who was staring relentlessly at her reflection with furrowed brows. "Ruthie, are you okay?"

Breaking away from her reflection she looked down at her sister, the younger version of herself, the more naïve version. If only she could go back in time and be that way again, not know the truth of the espionage world, go back before she ever agreed to go to Gallagher. If only she could go back…but she couldn't. She would always know, but maybe her sister could at least stay the same, innocent.

With a smile that was not faked Ruthie said, "I'm perfectly fine now. Let's go eat breakfast with our family."

They were soon all seated around the breakfast table, her mother at one end of the table and her father at the other. Ruthie sat beside her mother, next to her brother Michael, and across from her brother Steven who was looking at the sausage warily.

"It's not going to jump and bite you, Steve," she teased. He glared at her and she smirked.

"So, Annie," their father said setting down the paper. "Are you excited to be attending Gallagher this year?"

Ruthie froze.

Enthusiastically Annie nodded and looked as if she might break her neck in doing so. "Very excited," Annie stated and looked over at her sister. "I get to be with my sister and finally get to see all the information she keeps saying is classified." She tried to imitate her sister's famous smirk, but it came out more like a grimace.

_I really wish she would stop trying to be like me. She doesn't want to become me, to know what I know, about the real truth at Gallagher. The truth everyone is trying to hide._

She felt a foot under the table and looked up from her plate to see Steven giving her a worried glance. It pained her instantly. He knew something was wrong with her, he always knew. Maybe it was a twin thing or maybe it was because he knew her the best and realized she was changing while everyone else ignored the signs. Either way he couldn't help her, not now, not ever, she already knew too much.

"Ruthie," her mom called to her. "You need to eat quickly honey we have to go see the Parsons soon."

Ah, the Parsons, if only her mother realized she was taking her daughter straight to hell's mouth, straight to the boy who took away her innocent world.

Running her fingers through her hair Ruth stood up from the bed and shrugged into a robe, pulling it across her body and tying it tightly. She walked into the bathroom and checked her reflection. She didn't like what she saw.

Her face was paler and her cheeks were hollow framed by her new short jagged haircut. Her once vivid hazel eyes were hollow and dark reflecting what she felt inside. Her finger lightly traced the scar across her cheek. A scar she had received a week ago that was just starting to heal.

If her parents could only see her now, could only see what they had done by sending her off in the school years and bringing her to that boy in the summers.

"Shane," she murmured. She could only see wisps of his dirty blonde hair from the light shedding through the crack of the doorway.

"Shhh," the boy replied clamping a hand over her mouth and listening. They were standing in a small closet pressed tightly together because of the small space.

Ruthie stood there and tried not to get dizzy from the summer's heat—which was intensified because her mother forced her to put on a jacket because there might be a slight chance for cold winds, she should have known by now the weatherman was a liar like everyone else—and the close proximity she was to a boy, a boy she was undoubtedly falling for.

"I thought for sure those two had snuck in here." Mrs. Parson's voice sounded in the room followed by the soft click clack of her heels. "Well, maybe they went to the garden. I've seen Shane showing her the flowers out there, quite a bit these days actually." Her voice was filled with giddy. "They're so cute together, Martha."

Ruthie could hear her own mother sigh with contempt. "You think. It would be nice for Ruthie; she seems to be having a hard time socializing these days. It just seems…" Her mother let out another sigh. "She's not as happy as she used to be. Maybe it was a mistake sending her to boarding school, away from the family. Maybe she thinks we're sending her away because we don't want her or love her anymore. I just wish I could get through to her, to see the little girl I once knew."

There was a tear that slipped from Ruthie's eye as she listened to her mother confess her hidden secret, her biggest worry to her friend she knew the longest. It broke her heart to know that was how her mother felt and it also made her joyful to realize that her mother also saw through her exterior and knew something was wrong just like Steven. Although neither of them could help her.

A rough finger came across her cheek wiping away her tear. She turned and looked up to see Shane watching her and she wondered what he was thinking. Would her mother really be so glad she had Shane if she realized what they had actually been doing all these summers.

Staring at Shane and his unyielding eyes she continued to listen to the voices outside. "Martha, I'm sure she doesn't think that. I've seen you and Alexander tell her constantly how much you two love her and all your children. It's also not like she's the only one going to a boarding school you sent the two boys to that other boarding school Wellington. I'm sure she knows that you're doing this out of love, wanting them to have the highest education they can to exceed greatly in life. I think they can see how hard it is on you to watch them leave, you cry every time," Mrs. Parson said trying to consolidate her friend. "And your youngest Annie will be attending school with Ruthie this year, won't she?"

"Yes, she will."

Shane's eyebrow rose and Ruthie's heart plummeted. She had to keep Shane and Annie as far away from each other as possible. She couldn't let Shane tell Annie what he had told her, what he had shown her. Annie had to stay the innocent Goode. Ruthie would do everything in her power to make sure that happened.

"Now see, I'm sure that will help Ruthie in having her sister with her at school. Come on let's go see how Annie's doing on mending Willie's scrape."

Footsteps sounded followed by the closing of a door. Shane still didn't release Ruthie from his gaze or hands until exactly five minutes and then he took away his hand. He still didn't make a move to open the door or look away from her, not that Ruthie minded.

"So, your sister is old enough to go to Gallagher this year?" He asked it so causally as if there wasn't any hidden agenda behind his words.

"Yes," Ruthie replied slowly and cautiously. "Shane, I would appreciate it if you didn't tell Annie the truth about the school."

This caused Shane to tilt his head and study Ruthie. "Really? And why is that Ruth?"

"I just don't want her to know is all," Ruthie replied and tried to keep her voice steady. But that was a difficult feat with Shane's gaze.

"Hmm, I see, maybe that's because you don't believe it's true anymore."

He stepped closer to Ruthie and Ruthie backed up her back hitting the wall. "No, no, that's not it at all Shane. Of course I believe you and the Circle. How could I not? I just don't want Annie to know the cold truth, I…I want her to stay the way she is…innocent." _I want her to stay what I couldn't._

Shane lowered his head gazing straight into Ruthie's eyes with narrowed eyes of his own. "And that's the truth?"

"Yes," she breathed out. He was so close to her and she couldn't keep her eyes from diverting down to his lips, lips she had kissed so many times before and in more intimate spaces than she could count.

She felt his hands on her waist as they kept her back straight to the wall. His hands slipped under her shirt feeling the delicate skin beneath. His hands were rough from hours of endless outside work and sent chills up her spine as they made slow circles against her skin. Her breathing hitched.

His head lowered resting directly on the wall beside her ear as he whispered, "Are you willing to keep your sister innocent no matter what the cost?"

Ruthie bit her lip and held back a moan as Shane kissed and nipped at her neck pressing himself firmly against her and her way out, although Ruthie refused to see it that way, like always.

Thinking for a moment she let Shane kiss her, touch her, do things to make her body react in ways she never thought possible. With her head leaning back, arched up, and Shane kissing and sucking at the base of her throat she closed her eyes and said, "Yes. Whatever it takes to make my sister stay in the dark and innocent I'm willing to do it." Ruthie didn't realize then what kind of promise she had made.

Still Shane smiled and looked up at her. "Then it is a deal." He reached for the closet door and instead of opening it he shut it fully and locked it. Then he turned back to Ruthie and captured her lips in his sealing their deal.

_Would I still have said yes to that deal if I had known the degree it would go to?_

Ruth stared at her reflection in the mirror as if it would answer her or lie to her. But she didn't need the mirror to tell her the answer. She already knew. _Yes._

Because even though in that summer she made the promise without knowing the cost, deep inside herself she knew that somewhere down the line the ultimate choice would have to be made. A choice that would prove whether or not she would keep her own promise to maintain her sister's innocence when hers was long gone with no hope of returning.

She stepped out of the bathroom and looked at the large lump in the sheets where she left him. Slowly she pulled back the sheet from his face and kissed his cheek, the stumble rough under her lips, and smiled. How many times had she kissed this familiar figure? Too many to count, she thought.

Still she lied down next to him and wrapped her arm around his waist and pressed her face in the crook of his neck.

She had kept her promise for her sister and her deal with him that night of her graduation ceremony. A night no one at that school would forget.

_Bang._ It sounded almost like a firework had gone off and suddenly the lights were cut off and the black code alert sounded through the school.

Ruthie mentally cursed herself and ran looking for Shane. _Where was he?_

She turned the corner and almost fell over the dead security guard. His eyes were still open and blood was slowly pouring from his head from a gunshot wound. It was Shane's work.

Ruthie leaned in closely and looked at the small puddle that was forming, seeing that it must have been a recent kill. She smiled. She had to be close to him, his trail of dead bodies was becoming fresher.

Taking a turn to the next corner she started to think of her family and more specifically of her parents. They would soon be in shock with the rest of the school when they realized how much their daughter knew and what she had done to the extent of that obtained knowledge. She could already see her mom grimace and cry hysterically when the clip was shown of her shooting down the principal. But her mom didn't know the truth, didn't have the Circle of Cavarn on her side telling her the truth about all the lies the Gallagher Academy was trying to shove into their student's heads.

If only her parents knew about all the innocent deaths and wars these generations of students this school had grown had caused. The school, Gillian herself, had caused so much destruction, hatred, pain. This was the least they deserved and Ruthie would make sure they received their punishment and hopefully stop the school from making future generations of these ruthless, heartless, mindless killers.

But suddenly she stopped as she saw Annie's back, her long brunette hair flowing freely down her back like Ruthie's once had. She was standing in front of Shane yelling at him with words Ruthie couldn't understand.

Shane instantly looked up, knowing she entered the room and Annie immediately followed his gaze to her sister. There was a smile as there always was when Annie saw Ruthie but it quickly vanished when she saw that Ruthie was holding a gun and it was suddenly pointed at her.

"You remember our deal Ruthie," Shane said bringing Ruthie's mind back to that day in the closet.

"_Are you willing to keep your sister innocent no matter what the cost?"_

_Yes._

"Ruthie!" Annie screamed, petrified and confused. How could her sister stand there and point a gun to her with a blank face and load the trigger completely ready to fire?

Shane watched the two sisters closely. "You know what you have to do Ruth," he said, his voice smooth like honey. "She's listened to their lies. She believes them. She's going to become one of them."

"Ruthie, stop!" Annie shouted, pleading to her sister to drop the gun. Tears were starting to run down her cheeks.

"She's no longer going to be innocent."

In a flash the bullet left its holder and hit Annie straight through the chest and directly into the heart. It was a perfect bulls-eye. Annie dropped to the floor like a dead fly. Her eyes were wide and unmoving. She gargled for a moment and then there was nothing.

Ruthie stared at the body of her dead sister, the one she had wanted to keep innocent no matter what when she realized she had failed to save herself. She smiled and knew she had kept that specific promise. She looked over at Shane who was nodding pleased with her and she instantly felt giddy. He held out his hand and once she slipped her smaller one inside she knew there was no going back to the previous naïve, innocent Ruthie Goode, that girl was long dead.

Ruth smiled as she sat up and flipped her lover's body on top of the mattress. She never really bothered learning his name it didn't matter to her they would all pale in comparison to Shane who she never would forget.

She watched as the blood continued to seep from his recently opened throat and into the no longer pure white mattress. She smiled and patted her stomach relishing from the previous call from the doctor telling her that Elisha Summers, her most recent aliases, was two weeks pregnant. It was about time!

Joy had flooded through her body from that call, something she hadn't felt since Shane's death. And in celebration of the news she grabbed the knife she kept neatly placed under her pillow and slashed the throat of the man next to her. He never had a chance, she only wanted one thing from him and she was about to receive it.

She sat at the edge of the bed smiling and patting her stomach. In less than nine months she would be a mom. A little life would be placed in her hands dependent on her for everything. She couldn't help the sigh that she let out. She had wanted this for months and now it seemed to becoming true.

It would be hard, she knew, being a single parent, but she would teach her child everything she knew. She would show him the evils of the world and prepare him to fight alongside her or she would hide her locked and hidden away in a tower with her innocence still intact. Either way she wouldn't let anything get in the way between her and her child especially no one from the retched Gallagher Academy. She would let out her last breath before that happened.

She smiled and whispered, "You'll be here soon Zachary Shane Goode or Annie Shae Goode."

**A/N: Okay, so I hoped you liked it and it was easy to understand. The idea of what Zach's mother's childhood was like has been with me since I read the book and I wrote this on the spot today with no breaks. I'm not sure how I feel about only that it's quite different, the exact opposite from the last one-shot I wrote dealing with Zach's mom, the only part that's the same was that they were both relatively easy to write. So review and tell me what you think.**


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